There have been previous proposals for a pneumatic tire capable of reducing fuel consumption (See International Patent Application Publication No. WO/2011/135774 for example).
In the technology disclosed in International Patent Application Publication No. WO/2011/135774, the air resistance on the periphery of a tire is reduced by having a tire cross-section width W and outer diameter L with a ratio W/L of 0.25 or less, and reducing the tire front projected area (referring to the projected area of a pneumatic tire viewed from the rolling direction).
Recently, there has been a demand for the development of a pneumatic tire capable of demonstrating a high degree of performance with regards to steering stability performance and load durability, as well as fuel economy performance. However, achieving all of these performance capabilities in a well-balanced manner simply by controlling the ratio W/L remains unknown.